Faulty Memory
by vivi749
Summary: When the other members of the team are taken prisoner, Hardison enlists the help of Tara and Maggie to get them back. Written for the Leverage reverse big bang at livejournal.
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: There is one explicit sex scene in here, (one of the canon relationships in the show.) Also, two of the other characters literally leapt into bed together… I definitely did not plan it. But it wouldn't go away, so there it is. There are no explicit descriptions of them though. Hope you enjoy. I don't own Leverage.

Warning: The following contains:

Discussions of torture though no detailed descriptions

Use of drugs and hypnosis without consent

Occasional bad language

Mention of child pornography at one point

Rating is I suppose NC-17 (Though rated R is probably more appropriate)

This was beta'd by the extremely talented alinaandalion so a huge thank you to her. Also, this was inspired by an artwork by the also extremely talented ceares, so many, many thanks to her as well. Written for the Leverage reverse big bang over on livejournal

* * *

><p>Max withdrew the needle. The subject's eyes were already fogging over from the effects of the hypnotic agent.<p>

"He's coming along nicely," John said, flipping through the file in his hands. "Much better than the other male."

Max nodded but didn't respond.

He sat down in the chair across from the subject. "Look into my eyes. Now, where did we leave off?" The subject met his eyes through the drugs, the brightest blue eyes Max had ever seen. "Let's go back, shall we?"

* * *

><p>Nathan Ford leaned back in his chair. He was on guard duty tonight; ordinarily one of his deputies would have been doing it, but one of them was out of town visiting relatives and the other had taken to his bed with the pneumonia that was going around. There weren't many prisoners here; this small town didn't see much other than drunk and disorderly or the occasional stabbing in a fight over at the local bar.<p>

"Sheriff Ford!" Matthew Shelby burst into the room, out of breath. "You hafta come quick! We caught a woman trying to steal my mother's jewellery. Father told me if you aren't there in half an hour, he's taking her punishment into his own hands!"

"Alright, son, alright. Just slow down. Now, I can't leave the jail unattended just to settle a theft. You run over across to Doc Eller's place, ask him if he can come mind the jail while I'm away."

The boy took off at a run. Nathan gathered up his coat, checking the hang of the pistol at his hip. It had been his father's gun. The old man had left it for Nathan when he was a child, asking his mother to give it to him when he came of age. Nathan doubted whether his father had meant for him to use it quite the way he was; the last he'd heard the old man was still out there, just on the fringes of civilization, robbing banks and trains with a gang of the fiercest criminals ever heard of.

Doc Eller walked in the door just as he was rechecking all of the cells. He knew some folks would call him paranoid for the way he always double checked the cells before he'd leave, but being cautious had saved his life several times now.

"I'll watch for you, Nathan. From what I can tell you'd better be getting out there to Shelby's place. That old man has a mean temper."

Matthew was standing there and looked for a minute like he might argue, but then closed his mouth.

"Come on, Matthew. Let's get to the bottom of this. You ride in?" Nathan asked, as he opened the barn and started saddling up.

"Yeah, I left Betsy hitched over at the front of the jail."

"Well I'll meet you over there in five minutes. Be ready to ride. And check her saddle. Last time you rode in, you had it too loose; that can cause sores. Always take care of your mount. You don't, then don't complain when she drops out from under you." Matthew started to ask how he'd known the saddle was too loose, but the sheriff cut him off. "Get going, son."

Once they were out past the last of the town buildings, Nate kicked his mount into a gallop. Ten minutes later, they reached the Shelby's farm. Nate noted that the gardens needed weeding. Also, one of the fences was blown down from a recent windstorm. At any other farm, it would have been fixed by now, but old man Shelby didn't do anything today he could put off till tomorrow. The man had money, and it had made him lazy.

"She's over here," Matthew said, dismounting and leading his horse into the barn.

When Nathan got into the barn himself, he felt a brief flash of rage. Clarence Shelby was standing over a woman who was tied like a pig for the slaughter. Her hands had been tied together and then her feet, and then another rope looped through each of them behind her back so that she was stretched almost painfully backward.

"What's going on here, Shelby?" Nathan asked, as he went to one knee beside the woman, pulling out a knife and cutting the rope holding her hands and feet together. She watched him, dark eyes clear and focused and not a shred of fear in them.

"The damned woman was thievin', that's what's goin' on here," the man replied. "She was digging through my wife's things. Caught her with the diamond pendant that her ma gave her at our wedding. And I wouldn't cut no more of them ropes if I was you. She's a fast runner."

"Well, Shelby, I'm not you. And if I'm taking her to jail, I ain't going to throw her over my horse like a sack of potatoes." He cut the ropes on her feet but left the ones on her wrists for now, even though they appeared too tight. He'd check on them as soon as he got Shelby sorted out.

"Did you recover what she tried to steal? Did she cause any damage?" Nathan looked over at the man.

"Ha. She couldn't pull that one on me. 'Course we got it back. And no, she didn't do any damage. But that ain't the point. She was caught thieving and I want her punished. Now, if you don't wanna do it, I'm more than willin' to take her over and tie her to that fence and give her the whipping of her life." The man looked pleased at the prospect. Nathan was glad to burst his bubble.

"No sir. Typical punishment for a crime like this, no one hurt and nothing lost or broken, is one week in a cell. That's what she'll get." The woman's dark eyes bored into his, as if wondering why he'd save her from this man. Nathan took a second to realise that she hadn't yet spoken a word to him, then turned to Shelby. "I'll take it from here. You tell your wife I said hello." Nathan leaned down and helped the woman to her feet, trying to ignore the scent of her perfume and failing miserably.

* * *

><p>"Why did you stop him?" The words came as a shock. Her voice was low, and it was like silk in his ears. Her accent clearly said that she wasn't from around here.<p>

"I wondered if you'd ever speak. Thought maybe you were a mute."

She was riding in front of him. He'd cut the ropes holding together her hands and then retied them in front of her. Shelby had tied them so tightly that her hands had turned bone white by the time Nathan freed them. He knew it must have hurt, having the circulation come back, but she hadn't made a sound.

"I'm smart enough not to dig myself into a deeper hole. When someone has you tied up like that and clearly wants to cause you harm, it's best to just keep your peace." She shifted slightly, and he couldn't help but think about how good she felt against him. It was too bad that she was a criminal really; he thought he might have really liked her otherwise.

"Wise decision. Clarence Shelby has a hell of a temper, if you'll pardon me for saying so."

"You still didn't answer my question. Why did you stop him?"

"Because this isn't Shelby's town. It's mine. And I've got no intentions on letting him dictate what happens to its citizens or its visitors. Thieves though they may be." He spent a moment wondering whether she'd deny being a thief, but she didn't say anything about the accusation. "Why Shelby?"

She lifted her shoulders a bit and dropped them. "He has money. Figured they wouldn't miss it. Besides, he has all that wealth and what does he do? Drinks and gambles it away. Men like that need a sharp lesson once in a while."

"Well, unfortunately the rules that apply to Shelby apply to you, too. I don't need any vigilantes in my town. So I'm going to put you in the jail for the week like I promised him I would, and then I'm going to cut you loose. And I never want to see you here again." A small part of his mind yelled at him that yes, he most certainly _did_ want to see her again, but he pushed it down. They rode into the town. And...

* * *

><p>Max leaned back and smiled. The integration was coming along seamlessly; the man in front of him recited the events like they were his own life. Half the problem with this damn project was figuring out how to implant the memories without the subject's past life coming through. They'd already lost several very promising test subjects to insanity; unable to reconcile their two distinct sets of memories, the subject would inevitably end up dying of a brain aneurysm.<p>

So far the subject in front of him had held up surprisingly well. Of course the experiment was still just that: an experiment. Eventually, the ability to implant large amounts of memory could have a variety of uses. This subject and the three others that had come in with him were only the latest in a long string of eventual casualties.

"You want to see Spencer next?" John's question broke Max out of his musings.

Max considered the question and then said "No, the brunette. She keeps cropping up in his timeline, even though by all measurements he doesn't remember any of his past life. I want to see if the same effect proves true for her. Perhaps the sexual relationship between the two has further reaching implications than we first thought."

John nodded and opened the door. On his way out he gave instructions to the two med officers about the treatment that the prisoner was to receive.

* * *

><p>"Has she given you any trouble?" Max asked of the med tech that was sitting in a glass alcove, observing their next subject.<p>

The tech shook his head. "Haven't had any problems at all since we switched her to the higher dosage. She must have a great liver and kidneys to have been able to filter out that starting dose."

They all remembered that incident. They'd been a bit sceptical of the woman's supposed ability to con anyone into anything. So when she appeared to be compliant after the initial brainwashing and injections, they'd made the mistake of taking their eyes off of her. She'd killed three of their med techs before anyone could blink, and then ran.

Interestingly enough, there had been a door leading outside that she could very well have gotten through. If she had, it was a good bet she'd have been shot, but it was possible that she would have gotten away. But she hadn't taken the opportunity. Instead, she'd run further into their maze. It was clear that she was trying to make it to the others who'd been brought in with her. Unfortunately for her, they had designed each of the subject's quarters to be totally independent of each other, only reached with the right level of clearance at each checkpoint. Still, she'd made it through three of them before they'd caught her.

When they did catch her, it took three very large men to hold her down while they sedated her; she'd been right outside the cell where the male Nathan Ford was being kept, and she'd seen him before they caught her. In the time it took the sedatives to kick in, she'd looked each person there in the eyes and told them how she intended to kill them. In detail.

Needless to say, they were a bit more careful now. They'd increased the dosages on the hypnotics and started back from square one; a dangerous option since it carried the inherent risk of her running into a feedback loop with her memories. If that happened, they'd have no choice but to terminate her. No subject had ever survived a feedback loop and come back out. The increase in hypnotics was also dangerous to her kidneys. She may already have permanent damage, but even with all of their testing, it was hard to gauge when a subject would go into renal failure due to too high of a dosage.

Max flipped open her file and studied it briefly, even though he could have recited the important bits by heart. Though there were many other subjects undergoing this same procedure, he had been specifically assigned to these four, and only them. After glancing at where they'd left off the last time, Max walked over and sat down across from her at the table. They might have been friends meeting over coffee, if not for the restraints holding her arms and legs firmly to the chair.

"So, Miss Devereaux. We left off with you in Paris, yes? What do you say we continue that conversation?"

* * *

><p>Sophie dropped the pistol and swore. "Bon. Just wonderful. How are we supposed to fight the Nazis with this? We might as well throw rocks at them. It would work about as well." She sat down with a look of disgust.<p>

"Sophia, my friend, you shouldn't even be out there. You know they are looking for anyone with your colouring. They won't need to ask whether you are Jewish or not. Cherie, you must be more careful when you go out. Why did you feel the need to break into the commandant's office?" Philippe sat down across from her.

"I was hoping to find some information on where they took Marisa. I needed to try."

"I love her as much as you, but you will do no good if you are captured and taken away as well. We must be cautious." He reached out and took her hand, squeezing softly.

"I know." She sighed. "Do you think we will ever be free of the Nazis?"

"The Americans and British are coming. Word says they are already massing for a landing somewhere in the South."

"Americans," she snorted. "I will believe that when I see it."

They both looked up at a knock on the door. Philippe motioned for her to hide and tossed a cloth over the two stolen pistols on the table. "Entree-vous."

"It's me." Tara entered and relocked the door after her. "Where is she?"

Sophie moved back into the room.

"What the hell was that?" Tara said, exasperated. "You could have gotten yourself caught! And blown my cover!"

"I couldn't just sit here, Tara. You have it easy. At least you know that you're out there doing something. All I do is sit here and listen to the radios and translate messages. I cannot even go outside." She plunked back down on the sofa again.

"Yes, it is a glamorous life, pouring the Commandant's tea and making his bed." Tara's voice was dry.

"It's better than just sitting here." Sophie sighed and then stood up. "We will need to move again after dark. The SS have stepped up their patrols in this neighbourhood." She turned around and…

* * *

><p>Max stood up and walked away. Her memories appeared seamless as well. It didn't matter if he was here; there were three different cameras on each subject that would catch every word, every expression. John followed him.<p>

"You think this Tara person from her account is that blonde from the vid?"

It had been grainy, but they'd caught a picture of the two of them together from several months back. They'd been crashing a party full of Venezuelan diplomats.

"Possibly." Max replied. "It would be one hell of a coincidence, wouldn't it? I hear the higher ups were hoping to find her with them, but she wasn't there. I almost wonder if she didn't know it was coming and just run."

"Possible. You looking in on the younger female?"

"Not today. Keep them on the same regimens. How are we doing with Spencer?"

John shook his head. "The man's had some serious training in resisting interrogation. He'll spout nursery rhymes and songs all day, but so far, we haven't gotten a shred of useful Intel from him. We're still keeping him restrained 24/7. Feeding him through IVs. He's suffering some muscle wasting but I was told it's an acceptable loss."

Max nodded. "I'm going home for the day. Madeleine has a piano recital tonight."

"Tell her I said good luck then. Say hi to the wife.

Max waved over his shoulder.


	2. Chapter 2

Maggie flipped open her phone and sent a text. _He's on his way_, she sent. A second later her phone beeped.

_Good_, Tara sent back. _I'm ready_.

_Are you sure he won't recognise you?_ Maggie sent.

_ Soph and I are the best in the game at this Mag. He won't know._

Maggie sighed. She didn't like that the other woman was taking all the risks here, but she knew that there was no way she could have pulled off what they had planned. _Good luck, _she sent_. I'll meet you back at the rendezvous point._

The plan was rather simple really. Tara would 'bump into' the mark, leaving behind not one, but two transmitters with which they could record his movements. They needed to know where he was keeping Nate and the team. Hardison was the only one that hadn't been captured with the rest of the team, and that was only because he hadn't been with them when they'd been taken. He'd been running the con from the van at the time.

Maggie took a second to worry about him; he'd barely eaten or slept in the last three weeks. Every second of his time, he spent on his laptop, trying to find any small scrap of information that could lead them to where the team was. That was how they'd found out about Max Harding. Hardison had hacked the security cameras from the building where the team had been during their con when they'd been taken. He'd then painstakingly identified and researched every single person on those tapes until he found out about Max.

Maggie still couldn't help the small smile that occurred each time she remembered the list of people he'd investigated. There had been three adulterers, several government officials using different names, and also one genuine psychopath that they'd turned over to the police, solving about seven mysterious crimes in the process. But he'd ignored all of that because it had nothing to do with the team, and that was all he cared about.

Maggie shook off the thoughts and climbed into her car. She'd wait for Tara at the agreed spot and worry, even if the other woman didn't want her to.

* * *

><p>"It's done." Tara walked over and sat down on the bench beside Maggie. "Now we wait."<p>

Maggie sighed. "I hate waiting."

"Me, too," said Tara. "But there isn't anything else we can do, so I guess we'll just have to suck it up. Personally, I'm spending all my extra time imagining how many of these bastards I'm going to kill when I find them."

"Would you really do that?" Maggie looked at her. "Kill them, I mean."

"Will. Yes, I will," she said, stressing the word more strongly. "They took..." and here she shook her head ruefully, "they took the closest thing I have to a family. And unlike you and Hardison, I have a very good idea of what's being done to them. I've done it." She looked back out at the ocean. "It's why I left. I didn't mind hurting the ones that deserved it, terrorists and such. But I could never wrap my brain around hurting the ones that didn't deserve it. The husbands or wives," or kids, she added mentally "who hadn't done anything wrong except being inconvenient to the government."

"So that's what this is about?" Maggie asked. "It's all because they know too much?"

Tara nodded. "Nate drew a lot of attention from the wrong people. It's not his fault, exactly; he's doing his best to make an imperfect world a little better. But there are a lot of people who stand to benefit from this world being a shitty place. Those are the ones that had them taken."

"How can this happen though? How can the people in power know and not do anything to stop it?" Maggie's voice was frustrated.

"Secrets. 'Do not let the right hand know what the left is doing'," she quoted softly. "Most of the leaders never know what's being done."

"Matthew, chapter 3." Maggie looked at her. "I never would've pegged you for the religious sort."

Tara shrugged. "Once. A very long time ago. A different life." She sighed. "You need to rest. Between you and Hardison, I'm not sure who's been sleeping less. Pretty sure there isn't enough makeup on Earth for those circles under your eyes."

"Nightmares." Maggie spoke the word with regret. "I used to get them all the time after Sam died. They faded away eventually, but now they're back with a vengeance."

They stood up and walked to her car. Tara had taken a cab here after the job.

"I'll drive," Tara said. "I have more experience taking circuitous routes. Just in case they're watching, though at this point I have my doubts. We'd be captured or dead by now."

* * *

><p>"Hey," Maggie said softly. "Hardison," she said a little louder, shaking his shoulder. He'd fallen asleep at his laptop. His screen was currently filled with row after row of T's. Obviously he'd been leaning on the keyboard for a while.<p>

He started when she shook him and said "Wha..."

"Bed. _Now_," she said, when it looked like he might argue. Clearly he could see that it was useless because he simply closed the laptop and wandered away to his room.

They were staying in one of Tara's safe houses at the moment. It was impressive actually, if a bit overwhelming. The woman apparently liked living in luxury.

"I'm going to grab a shower and then do that too, actually." Tara took a bottle of water from the fridge. "Night."

* * *

><p>Maggie was still lying there with her eyes open, staring at the ceiling, when the door to her bedroom opened. "Closing your eyes might help you drift off, you know," Tara said.<p>

"I'm afraid to close my eyes. I'm afraid to sleep." The other woman sat down on the bed beside her. "What if we can't get them back?"

"We will." Tara's voice was full of conviction.

"You can't know that." Maggie didn't bother to wipe away her tears, just let them drip off the sides of her face onto her pillow.

"No. But I won't let myself believe otherwise." With a sigh, she climbed under the blankets next to Maggie and took the other woman in her arms.

She tried to stop her reaction but wasn't really able to, so she catalogued it for later and refocused. It wasn't really a surprise; she liked women almost as much as men (some more so, she thought ruefully, as images of a younger, very naked Sophie flashed through her brain). But this wasn't the time.

Or maybe it was, she thought in shock as Maggie's lips met hers. She responded automatically, parting her lips and moaning when the other woman swept her tongue into her mouth.

Maggie pulled back and looked at her, and then said "Sorry."

Tara laughed softly. "For what?"

"I should have at least asked before I did that. Hell, I don't even know if you like women."

"Well I would've thought my reaction was enough to tell you that much. Strangely enough, as good of a grifter as I am, I never pegged you as bisexual. I bet Soph saw it, though." She didn't need the other woman's smile to know she was right.

"She offered once." Tara's eyebrows almost met her hairline. "To have sex with me. She was extremely pissed off at Nate, so I don't know if she just meant to get back at him or if she actually liked the idea of sex with me."

Tara laughed. "Knowing Sophie, I'd say a bit of both."

"You were her lover at one point. I can see that when you say her name," Maggie said as she idly traced the lines on Tara's tank top.

"Yeah. But not for a while now. She's too in love with him," Tara replied. Maggie didn't look at all hurt or angry at that idea. "Do you want to do this?" She looked Maggie right in the eyes, wanting to make sure she didn't miss it if the woman decided to try to lie.

She needn't have worried. "I want this _badly_," Maggie stressed, kissing her again. "So shut up and fuck me."

Tara didn't bother to answer. She had a feeling they'd both sleep a lot better tonight.


	3. Chapter 3

"Morning," Max said as John handed him a cup of coffee.

John snorted. "Good. Huh."

"I didn't say good. Deliberately; I know you hate them." He was an early riser himself. It was when he did his best work.

"So where are we starting today?" John asked.

"We'll look in on the blonde, Parker and then Spencer after that." John nodded and led the way down a corridor, keying in his password at each doorway.

* * *

><p>John stopped outside the control room. "We haven't had much success with this one. Psych experts said that they think she has some sort of social disorder, Autism spectrum, maybe Asperger's. Anyway, she hasn't said a word in four days. Hypnosis didn't work very well. We managed to get her under a few times but then she broke out of it. We were worried we'd cause more damage to her than was acceptable at this juncture, so we've basically been holding her until we can figure out how to crack her."<p>

Max had a calculating look on his face. "Did you put through that request to get Moreau here like I told you?"

John nodded. "He got here last night. We have him over in section 8. So far we haven't done anything to him. Why him?"

"Well, he has a past with Spencer. So I need Moreau for a little test. Since we aren't getting much from this one," he pointed at Parker, tied into a chair, "she's an ideal candidate for the test. Have them take her over to section three and put her in one of the double environmentally controlled suites. Make sure all the feeds are working. Then have it connected to Spencer's room."

John smiled. "You're gonna give him a choice between her life or Moreau's, aren't you?" He looked excited at the prospect. "I love these kinds of experiments. The ones that make a person choose between two bad options. It tells a lot about their character. Remember the last one?"

Max nodded. "Actually, have someone pull up that video and load it to Spencer's cell as well. We'll show it to him before he makes his choice. Then he'll know we're serious."

John spoke with the med techs and ordered them to move Parker, and then hurried off to see to all the other arrangements.

* * *

><p>Max met John outside the room holding Spencer and grabbed the chart hanging on the wall. It was basically an I-Pad with more memory. All recordings of Spencer, along with analyses of his actions and reactions, were recorded and then transcripted into a word processor and tagged to each video. This made it easier for them to figure out which stimuli produced the best results and they could use those again. Still, they hadn't gotten a shred of useful information out of him.<p>

Apparently, he'd spent most of the previous night talking about the proper way to chop mushrooms before adding them to a stir fry. Max shook his head.

"Hello Spencer," he said, walking into the room. The man was strapped down onto a bed, restraints over each of his limbs and crisscrossing over his torso. Even his head was held down. "Shall we try another test today?" He inclined Spencer's bed so that he was held upright, facing a monitor.

It was a rather simple premise, really; give a person an easy choice to make and try to get them to make it. Like having them tell a small lie about something, such as a saying that a tie was blue that was in fact green. Telling the lie got them a reward; refusing got them punished. They'd tried many different tests along that theme so far, but to this point, Spencer would not give them anything that they wanted. So now they were going to try a slightly different tactic.

"I believe you know this man?" Max said, pointing at a screen. A live video feed was activated. On screen a man with dark hair was restrained in a chair. "His name is Damien Moreau. We... liberated him from a jail in San Lorenzo for this little game." He brought up another live feed. On the second screen, Parker was also "Now, what I'm going to give you is a simple choice. On this laptop is a button. Push it, and Moreau dies. However, if you don't push it, all of the air will be sucked out of the chamber where your friend Parker is being kept. She will suffocate slowly. If you do nothing, both of them will die."

"You won't kill her. You need her." Eliot's voice was raspy, almost a growl.

"No, my friend, we don't. She is nothing but an experiment. If she must be terminated, then she must be. She does not have any information that we need. That isn't what this is about. Now, before you make the choice, I want you to watch something. So that you know I am serious." Max brought up a video. Another man, held down like Eliot, was given the choice. He refused to do anything, citing the same reasons that Eliot had. Then he watched in horror as both of the chambers in front of him had the air sucked out, and the occupants died, gasping for air.

Eliot watched the whole thing with eyes of stone. It was hard to think between the drugs they'd been feeding him, his dehydration, and the constant pain. He knew this man might be lying to him, that maybe nothing would happen to Parker if he didn't push that button. He also knew that it was quite possible the man was telling the truth. Moreau was a criminal, a murderer, a rapist. He deserved to die. And Eliot's job was to protect his team. Protect Parker. But if he did this, they might just do it again, keep using Parker or the others to get him to do worse and worse things. Tomorrow, it might be a pregnant woman sitting in that chair. Or a baby.

Suddenly, a siren rang overhead. Both Max and John looked over at the sound of the door opening. So they both saw their deaths coming when a man with blonde hair tied back in a ponytail ran at them full speed and landed a knife in each of their chests.

"Hey Eliot," said Quinn, stepping over the bodies on the floor. "This is two you owe me now." He cut the restraints and helped Eliot walk to a chair.

"Parker. You hafta get her out of there. They were gonna kill her!" Eliot tried to stand and Quinn forced him back down.

"Easy, man. Here, drink this. It'll help." He handed Eliot a bottle of Powerade. "Look," he said, pointing at the video feed.

On it, Eliot was astonished to see Hardison working on the restraints holding Parker down. He turned briefly toward the camera, giving them a thumbs up, and then picked the girl up in his arms and carried her out a door, disappearing from the picture.

"Come on, let's get you outta here," said Quinn and pulled Eliot's arm over his shoulder. Just as they went to turn away, Eliot saw Moreau begin gasping for air as the oxygen was sucked out of both of the chambers. He'd deal with that idea later, he thought, and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. Quinn handed him an earbud and he slid it into his right ear.

"...got Nate" he heard, in Maggie's voice. "He's really messed up on something, he doesn't even recognise me. He's cooperative though."

"Yeah, same thing with Soph. She's calling me by my name but somehow thinks we're in France during World War II. Jesus, what did they give them? We're almost to the back gate now." Tara's voice was tense.

"Guys, we only have another five minutes until that firewall I put up fails. Parker and I are at the van. Hurry the hell up," said Hardison.

"We're almost there," Quinn said. He pushed open a door and led Eliot out blinking into the sunshine.

Ten minutes later, they were gone.

* * *

><p>"Hand me that IV kit," Tara said, pointing. Quinn gave it to her. "I'm going to dump some fluids into Sophie and Nate, try and dilute whatever they gave them. Hardison, how's Parker?" she called toward the front of the van.<p>

"Well, she recognised me. But she won't talk now."

Tara shook her head and bent over Sophie to start an IV. The second the needle touched her skin, Sophie started flailing at her.

"Whoa, Sophie, it's me, it's Tara. Stop!"

Sophie looked at her, confused. She appeared to recognise her somewhat but seemed unable to place from where.

"It's okay, Soph," Tara said softly. "It's okay. I'm not trying to hurt you. It's okay."

She tried the IV again and the other woman stopped fighting, still with her eyes on Tara as if trying to work out who she was. Her pupils were way too wide, either from the drugs she'd been given or from fear. Tara finished with the IV and started a bag of saline running full blast.

"Mag," she said, "can you take this and wrap it around that IV site? Not too tight, I just don't want her pulling it out accidentally." Maggie took the roll of cotton and began wrapping it around Sophie's arm wordlessly.

Tara moved over to where Nate was and repeated the IV process. He was a bit more cooperative. His eyes were almost as dark as Sophie's, though, and they never stopped moving.

"Now you, Eliot," Tara said. She shoved Quinn, and he moved aside so she could sit down next to Eliot. "You know where you are?" she asked. He nodded. "Tell me."

"Lucille." She blinked a bit and then huffed a laugh. Right. Hardison was always naming his vans.

"Yeah. Do you know what they did to them?" she asked, pointing at Nate and Sophie, and then indicating the front of the van where Parker was. She dimly registered that Hardison was only driving with one hand because the other was being firmly grasped between both of Parker's.

"Something about implanting memory." Eliot leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

"Yeah, I thought so."

She finished hooking up his IV and went back over to where Sophie was. The bag she'd hung was only 500mL and was almost empty. She switched it out and slowed the rate a bit. She didn't want to give Sophie too much fluid until she had blood tests done. When Hardison had hacked the computers at the lab, he'd found out that Sophie had some kidney damage but they weren't sure of how much.

"We're almost there," Hardison called from the front.

They were headed back to one of her safe houses, this one right by a hospital. A friend of hers that was also a doctor was standing by at her place to examine the four they'd rescued. He had access to the hospital facilities and could therefore process the test results without them having to be admitted. They pulled into the driveway. Eliot was able to walk inside on his own, but Quinn had to carry Nate; he kept stumbling. They didn't even bother trying to make Sophie walk.

"Hey, Jack," said Tara. "Thanks for coming."

"Anytime. Since you told me she has kidney damage I'll check her over first," he said, pointing at Sophie. He took all her vitals and checked her pupils for their response to light, and then drew several samples of her blood. He drew blood from Nate as well and then said "Take these over to the front desk and tell them Dr. Smith sent them to be processed." He handed the samples off to Tara and she left.

He moved on to Nate and performed the same checks, and then to Parker.

She tried to hit him and Hardison grabbed her. "It's okay, mama. He's trying to help."

She stopped fighting after Hardison pulled her into his lap. After he'd satisfied himself that Parker was going to be okay, the doctor turned to Eliot. He tsked over the bruises that covered the hitter. "You have some broken ribs," he said. "I'll wrap them."

"I want a shower first." Eliot's voice was soft.

"You can't, and certainly not alone. The heat could make you lose consciousness." Jack's voice was firm.

"I'll watch him." Maggie stood. "C'mon Eliot." He stood up at her request and followed her out of the room.

* * *

><p>Twenty minutes later, Jack's cell beeped. The lab had sent him the results of the blood work. He signed into Hardison's computer and accessed the online database, checking the results. The kidney damage to Sophie wasn't that bad. He sped up her IV. Best to flush out the toxins in her system as quickly as possible.<p>

The man, Nate, seemed alright except that his liver counts were screwed up. He mentioned that to Tara and she told him about the alcoholism. He nodded but told her that in no way could the man be allowed to drink until the drugs cleared his system. It could very well cause a heart attack. Her response to this was to roll her eyes and tell him that she thought maybe _she'd_ better start drinking now, since Nate Ford sober was a terrifying prospect. Jack hadn't been able to tell if she was serious or not.


	4. Chapter 4

Maggie slumped down on the couch. It was almost eleven thirty. They'd long ago put Nate and Sophie and Eliot to bed. Quinn had left, but given them a number to call him at if they needed him. Hardison and Parker had disappeared into a bedroom as well.

"Can't sleep again?" Tara sat down next to her.

Maggie didn't say anything. After a moment, Tara moved over and pulled her into her arms. Maggie rested her head on Tara's shoulder.

"I thought they'd be okay." Maggie couldn't keep the disappointment out of her voice. "I thought once we got them out..."

Tara sighed. "They might be. Once again, we're stuck waiting. A lot of the healing now has to come from them."

"Yeah, well, you'll have to forgive me if I don't have a lot of faith in that. Ever seen Nate try to heal? He isn't very good at it."

"Yeah, I have actually, and you're right. He sucks at it. So does Sophie. But they heal each other up much faster than they can heal themselves. So maybe there's something to hope for." Tara hugged her a bit more tightly and then let go. "I won't be going to sleep tonight. I'm going to be checking on them, doing vitals, watching the IVs. You should rest though."

Maggie shrugged and got up. She doubted that she'd sleep but she'd try.

* * *

><p>When Tara walked into Sophie's room and found the bed empty at 4 AM, she almost panicked. Then her brain went into gear and she realised where her friend was. She crossed the hall and opened the door to Nate's room. Sophie was curled up against him, sound asleep. He wasn't. His eyes were open, and when Tara stepped into the room, he followed her progress.<p>

"Know who I am?" she asked softly. She sat down next to Sophie. His arms tightened around the woman.

"Tara. How did we get here?"

"Long story, Nate. Was she awake? Enough to talk to you, I mean." She stroked Sophie's hair.

"No. She just crawled in next to me and passed back out. She pulled out her IV." He pointed to a spot of blood on her sleeve.

"Shit. It was hard enough getting her to let me put the first one in." Tara sighed. "We'll leave it out for now. If she wakes up, make her drink, even if she protests."

"You can take mine off too. I have to pee as it is, but I don't want to move."

"Tough. Do it anyway. I'll look after her until you get back." He nodded and slid out the other side of the bed. Tara had to hold Sophie's hands back as she tried to grab Nate when he moved away.

When Nate got back, Tara had him hold out his arm and she locked off his IV. "I'm going to bring you guys both a bottle of water. I expect you each to drink them by morning or the IVs go back on again."

"When did you get so bossy?" he joked.

"When you and my best friend nearly died."

Good point, he conceded. His brain still felt weird, like there was cotton stuffed in it. And he kept getting these weird flashbacks of stuff he was sure he'd never done in his life. "Are the others okay?"

Tara nodded. "They will be. Parker is in shock, I think. Eliot, they tortured. But they'll survive. Concentrate on yourself. And her," she said, pointing at the brunette sleeping in his arms.

He nodded. "I will." His eyes drifted shut.

* * *

><p>Hardison woke up at eleven the next morning wondering where the hell he was. He'd been moving so much and sleeping so little that he had very little sense of time or place anymore. He was surprised to see Parker still lying pressed up against his side. She'd told him fragmented parts of what they'd tried to do to her at that lab. Apparently most of their experiments had been unsuccessful, which was why she was in better shape than Nate and Sophie. Still, she said that they had managed to implant some weird memories in her, flashes of other places and times that she knew hadn't existed.<p>

The last thing she'd said before falling asleep was: "Sometimes I didn't know where I was or who I was. But you were always there, somehow. In every memory." He'd waited until she was asleep to cry about that.

"Hey," he said, whispering in her ear. She moaned softly and snuggled closer. "Hey. Breakfast. You know, cereal?" Her eyes popped open. He laughed. "C'mon, baby, let's get you fed."

Hardison's plans of eating cereal disappeared when he walked into the kitchen and smelled real food cooking. Eliot and Maggie were standing at the counter, talking softly and chopping up vegetables.

"Hey, man, shouldn't you be resting?" Hardison asked Eliot.

"I'm not doing anything stressful. Grab some plates and set the table." Hardison nodded. Parker inched her way onto the counter and watched Eliot work, occasionally stealing a piece of whatever he was cutting up and ignoring his growls about her accidentally getting her fingers cut off.

Nate wandered in and poured himself a cup of coffee. He grabbed a bottle of whiskey out of the cupboard and was about to pour some in his cup when it was yanked out of his hand. Tara had followed him into the kitchen.

"Nope. Doctor's orders, no alcohol," she said, dodging as he tried to grab the bottle back.

"Nate, you've been without a drink for three weeks," said Maggie from over by the stove. "Pretty sure another couple of days won't kill you. Maybe you should take a stab at going sober, since you probably don't even remember going through the withdrawal."

He grumbled but walked over and sat down on the couch, flipping open a newspaper. He wasn't actually as interested in the articles as the date and what city he was in. San Diego. Good start.

Sophie drifted in just as Eliot was dishing out omelettes from the pan. She looked around with a bit of a confused look, but then saw Nate sitting on the couch and immediately detoured toward him. He stood up and led her to the table.

* * *

><p>Breakfast was mostly quiet, everyone taking the chance to just eat in relative peace and safety. Eliot did say "Hey!" when Parker stole a piece of his food off his fork right before he could stick it in his mouth, but then grinned at her and let it go. Sophie hadn't said anything, so her first words were a bit of a shock.<p>

"Don't you dare hurt her." Her eyes were on Tara's. Then they drifted over to Maggie and back. Tara had the grace to blush a bit. Everyone else looked at Sophie in confusion.

Maggie stood up. "I think I'll take a walk," she said abruptly, looking at Tara.

"Um, yeah, maybe I'll come with," Tara said, dropping her fork and following her.

"What the hell...?" Hardison looked confused.

"They're sleeping together," Sophie said. Hardison's jaw dropped. So did Nate's.

"But Maggie isn't gay!" Nate burst out.

"Neither is Tara," said Sophie. "Bisexual is technically the correct term, Nate." She reached out and closed his mouth for him. He swallowed and looked back at his plate.

* * *

><p>"You okay?" Tara asked, stopping a few feet from Maggie. The other woman had plunked herself down under a tree and was leaning against the trunk.<p>

Maggie opened her eyes. "Yeah. I just... didn't expect anyone to figure it out that fast."

Tara sat down. "That's Soph for you. She's the smartest person I know, except maybe Nate."

"Sometimes I think they're too smart. They can't get out of their own way or each other's. Drives me nuts, because I like them both."

"Mmm. Well, thankfully I'm simpler than that," Tara said, and leaned in and kissed Maggie. "I know how to just shut up and enjoy things."

Maggie smiled. "Think Hardison can babysit them for a bit?"

"What do you have in mind?" asked Tara.

"Closest bed we can find."

Tara laughed and pointed across the street at a hotel, and then held up a credit card out of her pocket. Maggie grinned back and they walked off.

* * *

><p>Sophie stood up and tugged on Nate's hand. He followed and she led him into the bathroom, pulling two towels out of a linen closet on the way by. "Bath time," she said. "We both smell."<p>

He pulled her into his arms briefly. "You smell like Sophie. That's all that matters." She smiled a little, and turned on the taps. Then she dug through the medicine cabinet and came up with a disposable razor, tossing it to him.

Nate swore briefly when he cut himself shaving. Stupid things. Sophie had found a second one and somehow managed to shave both her legs and under her arms by the time he'd finished with his face. How the hell did women do that? She rinsed off the shaving gel and then started filling the tub. From the steam rolling off the water, he had a feeling getting in it was going to hover between pleasure and pain.

She got him to climb in first and then stepped in and sank down against him. He rested his arms around her midsection and closed his eyes, willing his body to behave itself. He didn't want her to have sex with him until she was ready.

"I can hear you thinking." Her comment was soft. "It's okay to react to me, Nate."

She dragged her hand up his thigh under the water. He gave it up and let the arousal run through him, feeling himself start to get hard. She turned around so she was facing him and kissed him, sweeping her tongue into his mouth. One of her hands was against his chest. The other was stroking his erection.

He shifted her closer and dipped his head to capture one of her nipples with his tongue. She said his name softly. He tugged with his teeth, and she gasped. When he started touching her clit, she pushed into his hand. Nate slid forward a bit and pulled her into his lap, both of them moaning when she sank down onto his erection.

"Protection," he said suddenly, and pulled out.

She growled at the loss of contact but stood up and walked to the medicine cabinet, ignoring the water she was getting on the floor. She grabbed a package of condoms and tossed them onto the back of the toilet, tearing one open and handing it to Nate. He slid it on and pulled her back down in his lap, facing him. He had to do some trigonometry in his head to try not to come right away at the feeling of her tight heat surrounding him. Thankfully, she was just as eager as he was, and it wasn't long before her muscles clenched around him and she dug her nails into his back. He called her name as his orgasm washed over him.

* * *

><p>"I killed them."<p>

He looked over. He was propped up against the headboard, reading a novel he'd grabbed off the bookshelf in the living room. She was curled up against his side. He'd thought she'd fallen asleep.

"It seems like a dream, a nightmare, but I know it wasn't. I got free and I killed three of them. I'm such a fucking hypocrite," she said, as tears streamed down her face. He dropped the book and wrapped his arms around her. "I spent all that time lecturing you about not killing Dubenich and then I murder three people just so I can get away."

"They deserved it, Soph," he said into her hair. "They shouldn't have tried to keep you there. They shouldn't have captured us at all. What they were doing was wrong."

"And if they were just following orders?" She was sobbing a little bit, her hands curled into his shirt in a vice grip.

"Babylon 5." She gave him a weird look and he clarified, "There was a captain that led a civil war against his own government because that government was oppressing the people it was sworn to protect. He said that any soldier that executed an order from that government, such as firing on unarmed civilians, was guilty of war crimes and deserved whatever they got. He was right. Actually, I learned a lot of things from Babylon 5. It was a really good show. Sam even liked it." He flinched mentally at the pain that always came with saying his son's name.

"Tell me what else you learned from it. Anything. Just... distract me." She could remember him at that rehab centre, saying 'just please, give me something to do' and now she could finally understand.

"Faith manages. Numbers don't lie. Terror is as much a weapon as any knife. I could go on and on. You should watch it, though. I think you might like it, if you can get past the space stuff."

She looked at him and wiped away some of her tears. "Give me a good reason."

He smiled. "Nuzin falani...en alis mi dron."

"And what does that mean?"

He grinned again. "It's... just a greeting. It means, 'my words are inadequate to the burden of my heart'."

"I don't believe that's what it means. You're quoting."

"So find out what it means. Watch it." He gave her a challenging stare.

"Like I'll do that when all I have to do is ask Hardison." She shrugged and he closed his eyes briefly. Oops.

He got up. "Stay here," he said, and went to the living room. "Hardison, do you have Babylon 5 on your laptop? The third and fourth seasons," he clarified.

Hardison just looked at him. "Duh. On my external hard drive." He handed it to Nate. "There's an extra laptop over there," he said, waving towards the other side of the room. Nate picked it up and took it into his room.

"Two scenes you have to see." Sophie sat up and looked at the screen and he loaded the first one. "That's Marcus, and that's Susan Ivanova," he said pointing. "Watch."

* * *

><p><em>'I could teach you if you like.' Marcus smiled.<em>

_ 'No, I don't have the time. It would take me... a year.'_

_ 'And assuming we survive this, how old will you be in a year, if you don't learn to speak Minbari?'_

_ She smiled. 'The same.'_

_ 'Exactly.' He hesitated, and then said 'Nuzin falani... en alis mi dron,' said Marcus. The translation flashed across the bottom of the screen, in blue letters. "__You are the most beautiful woman I've ever met."_

_ 'What's that mean?' Ivanova asked._

_ Marcus smiled. 'It's... just a greeting. It means "my words are inadequate to the burden of my heart."'_

_ 'That's an unusual greeting.'_

_ 'They're an unusual people.'_

* * *

><p>Sophie looked over at Nate. She went to speak and he put a finger over her lips. "Two scenes," he repeated. He pulled up another.<p>

* * *

><p><em>Marcus walked into a room where Ivanova was sleeping. He passed a hand over her face, and said softly 'You'll never know.' Then he tapped her on the shoulder and said 'You slept well.'<em>

_ Ivanova opened her eyes and looked at him. 'How long did I sleep?'_

_Then she gave him hell after finding out he'd let her sleep four hours even though he'd said he'd wake her up after two. As he turned to leave she stopped him._

'_Hey' she said, 'the last time that we were in this room, you said something to me in Minbari. I happen to have an eidetic memory. It went uh... "Nuzin falani, en alis midron."' She smiled. 'You told me it was just a greeting.'_

_ Marcus' eyes were sparkling, but all he said was 'Yes.'_

_ "Well in case you haven't noticed, I've uh... learned a little Minbari since then. Thank you.'_

* * *

><p>Sophie found it a bit amusing that Nate wouldn't meet her eyes. "Look at me." He took a deep breath and let it out, and then turned and faced her. She smiled. "I love you."<p>

Nate started. He always thought he'd have had to be the first one to say it. He'd driven her away so many times that she was wary of getting too close.

He met her eyes and said "I love you more than life. More than anything." Then he felt like a total baby when he felt tears in his eyes. Christ, what was he, fifteen?

Sophie smiled and pulled him over to her, kissing him and then pushing him against the bed so she could cuddle up against him.

"Why now?" he asked softly.

She sighed. "Because somewhere in all the things they did to me, I realised that I'd never told you how much I cared. I thought I was going to lose you without ever having the chance. I realised that the only thing holding me back was pride, and I decided that my pride wasn't worth losing you."

"I can no longer imagine my world without you in it," he quoted softly. When she looked up, he said "Babylon 5 again."

"Show me." She pointed at the monitor. Once she'd watched that part of the episode, she ordered him to play the entire thing. Then she made him explain all the other stuff that wasn't part of the episode. Somewhere along the line, she realised that yes, she was probably going to end up watching this series.


	5. Chapter 5

"So what's the plan?" Everyone looked over at Parker's question. Her eyes were on Nate.

"To stay far away from them, Parker." It was a mark of Nate's intelligence that he hadn't had to ask what she meant.

Maggie wasn't so lucky. "What plan, Parker?"

Parker looked at her with an exasperated expression. "The plan to take them down. You know, the people that did this. We weren't the only people they had hostage."

"Parker," Nate started and then stopped, trying to figure out what to say. "We can't fight a war. And if we try to take them down, that's what we'll be doing. So there is no plan, except staying away."

He dropped his eyes to his plate to avoid the hurt look on her face. He knew she thought that there was always a way to win, but he also knew that she was wrong. Sometimes you lost. And he had no intentions of losing anything else.

"We have to." It was Hardison's voice this time. Nate looked at him. "Nate, we can't leave other people there. We have to do something. I'm not saying like, a full frontal assault, but there has to be a way to stop them."

Nate sighed. "I'll think about it. Okay?" He looked at Parker and then Hardison. They each nodded. "God, I need a drink."

Sophie swatted him on the back of the head. "You heard Tara. No alcohol."

"That's what selective hearing is for," he shot back, and then ducked when she swatted at him again. The drugs must have slowed her down, because normally he couldn't dodge her.

Maggie calmly reached over from the other side while he was watching Sophie and slapped him on the back of the head.

"Ow! Jesus, I'm never sitting at a table between you two again. I'll have a concussion by the time I finish eating."

"Well if you'd just shut up and eat, you'd get in less trouble," Tara joked from the other side of the table.

Nate looked like he was about to make a witty retort, then looked at Maggie sitting on one side of him and Sophie on the other. He swallowed whatever it was he'd been about to say and bent back to his meal. So he missed the smile Maggie and Sophie shared.

* * *

><p>"Hardison, you remember that CIA guy Conrad?" Nate wandered over to where Hardison was sitting on the couch, just enjoying not having to do anything for once.<p>

"Yeah, the one we ran into when we took down Zilgrim?"

"That's the one. Theoretically, how hard would it be for you to dig up info on his life? I mean everything. Contacts, past transgressions, all the things the CIA wouldn't want found out."

Hardison shrugged. "Anything on a computer I can do. But a lot of CIA stuff is on paper. Can't hack paper, man."

Nate nodded. "I need whatever you can get. If it isn't enough, we may have to do a retrieval, send in Sophie or Eliot or both."

"Wait man, you're considering blackmailing a CIA operative? That could turn out all sorts of wrong, Nate."

"I know. Which is why I'm going to be keeping all of you out of it. If it doesn't work, I want you and Eliot to promise me you'll get Parker and Sophie and take them away. Far away, and keep them safe."

"Nate, how many times do we have to tell you? Either we have each other's backs, or we don't. We can't just leave you."

"Hardison, you're my friend. I trust you. I trust you with the most important thing in my life, to keep it safe. The only way I'm going to be able to do this is if I know that if things go wrong, she'll be okay. Please."

Hardison swallowed hard, and then nodded. "Okay, man. But I want you to know, Eliot and I won't leave you there. We'll come back for you if they get you again."

"I never doubted that." Nate put a hand on the younger man's shoulder for a second. "Find me something I can use."

* * *

><p>"What are you up to?" Sophie leaned up against the counter and watched Nate. He turned from his intense study of the cupboard where he knew a whiskey bottle resided.<p>

"I was having a very deep conversation with that cupboard," he said, pointing.

Sophie smiled. "Talking to cupboards now? How did I get involved with someone like that?"

He shrugged. "You ran. I chased."

"So what did this conversation involve?"

"On my part? Mostly the words 'No, I won't'," he replied.

His phone started vibrating on the counter. Sophie handed it to him, then raised an eyebrow when she heard him answer in Italian. Great. As if that woman hadn't caused enough trouble the first time around. He didn't talk long, just enough to set up a meeting. After he ended the call, he looked over.

"Are you angry?"

She shook her head. "Worried, a bit. She's dangerous, Nate."

"You're telling me? She met me in a car five minutes after she finished assassinating a guy." After a second he said "Actually, that's why I need her. Precisely because she is so dangerous. She admitted to me that she owed me, us, for taking out Moreau. I think I can use that to take down the people that caused us to be captured. I want you with me at the meeting. You're much better at convincing people than I am." She raised an eyebrow at the compliment and he said "What? It's true."

She tilted her head. "I'm not sure whether it's you being sober or you being drugged that's making you this nice. But I'll take it."

He smiled and closed the distance between them, kissing her, and then lifting her up on the counter and stepping between her legs. He was having fond thoughts about continuing this until he heard a voice say "Get a room, guys."

He backed away quickly, blushing. Maggie just raised an eyebrow. "How would you like it if I was making out with Tara in the middle of the kitchen?"

"Sounds good to me," Sophie said with an absolutely sinful smile.

"I'll make popcorn," Nate added.

Maggie rolled her eyes. "Seriously?"

She stalked off. Nate and Sophie just grinned at each other.

* * *

><p>"So, Mr. Ford, what can I do for you?"<p>

"What, you're deigning to speak to me in English this time?" he joked.

"Well, to be fair, only because your accent is atrocious." She smiled a bit to take the sting from the words.

"She's right, actually. You sound like you have a mouthful of mush," Sophie said.

"So why'd you insist we meet here?" Nate looked around. They were in a parking garage. He'd had Hardison check but there were no cameras in here.

"It isn't a good thing for me to be seen associating with known criminals." She pointed at Sophie. "I almost caught her once. At the last moment, she slipped away."

Nate turned and looked at Sophie. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because your life, our lives, depended on you cooperating with her." Sophie pointed. "I thought you might start acting all male protector if you knew she tried to kill me."

Nate's eyes widened. Then he trained an anger-filled gaze on the Italian. "You tried to kill her? Why?"

The woman showed no distress at his anger. "She and a friend made off with some very important documents. We were worried that they would sell them to our enemies. I was sent to get them back."

Nate turned and looked at Sophie and mouthed 'Tara?' and she nodded. "We weren't going to sell them. Actually, we wanted something your government had so we needed them as a bargaining chip." Sophie shook her head. "All of that is in the past. We need your help."

"With what?"

"About a month ago, my team were doing what for us was mostly a routine job. We were taken prisoner, with the exception of my hacker. They drugged us, tortured our hitter, performed experiments on us. Obviously we escaped, but there are still people trapped in that place. We want to shut it down." Nate dragged a hand through his curls. "You have information on a lot of the CIA's dealings. I need that."

She was already shaking her head. "I would be recalled home and killed, my body dumped in an alley for rats to feed on." Sophie winced at that image. The woman noticed. "It is the truth. I have seen it."

"Done it?" Sophie replied softly. "We don't need you to steal the files. We just need you to get me in so I can steal them."

"And if they find out I am involved?"

Nate shrugged. "Play dumb?"

"Mr. Ford, here perhaps you can use that as an excuse for failure. Things are not the same where I come from. My employers will not take kindly to any failure on my part. And I am… expendable."

"What if I could make you not expendable?"

She laughed slightly. "I do not believe even you are capable of that."

"Didn't you say the Italian ambassador to Britain was looking for more security?" Nate asked Sophie.

She grinned. "Mmm. So we set up a rescue, then the break in at the CIA offices, then when her government gets angry we have the ambassador defend her? I like it."

"Will it work?" he asked.

Sophie nodded. Then grimaced. "That means I'll have to talk to Auntie again. Ugh. Wretched woman."

Nate smiled. "Well, I thought about throwing my teacup at her while she was sniping at you, but I thought you'd be mad. You always say I have no manners."

"You cannot do this. Even for you, this is not possible." The Italian was eyeing them both warily.

"Didn't you express doubt about me being able to take down Damian Moreau in his own country, too? Of course, without your cooperation, it's a moot point."

The woman took a deep breath. "If I do this, we are even?" Nate nodded. "Very well. When?"

Nate thought for a second. Then he looked at Sophie. "Two weeks?" he suggested. She nodded. "I'll text you when we need to meet again." The woman nodded and walked away.

Sophie swatted Nate on the back of the head. "Ow! What was that for?"

"Stop staring at her ass and come on."


	6. Chapter 6

The planned attack and subsequent rescue of the Italian ambassador went off without a hitch. He was grateful beyond all measure, and even happier when he found out that it was someone of his own country that had saved him. He made the offer of a job as his bodyguard right on cue. The Italian (Maria, she'd finally told Nate) accepted but told him that she had some things that she had to finish as part of her old job.

* * *

><p>"Be careful." Nate was sitting in his car with Sophie. He was trying to conceal exactly how worried he was about her going into this place, and he didn't think it was working.<p>

"I'll be okay, Nate." There was a faint tremor in her voice.

She was terrified. Terrified that they'd kill her, or even worse, that they wouldn't, and she'd end up right back where she'd started this mess. Drugged, unable to tell reality from fantasy. There were still times that either she or Nate woke up in the middle of the night and had to wake the other and ask where they were, if this was all a dream. Eliot had been mostly okay since his bruises healed; he'd told them that it wasn't even the worst torture he'd ever experienced. And Parker was fine except that she was closer to Hardison than ever.

"I know you'll be okay. You always are," he said softly. After a second he said, "It's time."

Sophie nodded, and pulled him down into a kiss. "I love you," she said.

He nodded. "I love you, too."

He watched until she was out of sight before he drove away.

* * *

><p>The plan to steal the CIA files went fine, except that Sophie's com went dead about twenty minutes into the con, and Eliot had to hold Nate down so that he wouldn't rush in there in some sort of suicidal attempt to rescue her. When her com came back on almost a half hour later, Nate was frantic. Eliot hadn't had any other choice but to tie him up, so at the moment he was tied up rather awkwardly and glaring at Eliot from the floor. Glaring because of the duct tape over his mouth; Eliot had been worried that Nate's shouting was going to attract attention.<p>

"Nate, we're out," said Sophie, and then "Nate?"

"He's… indisposed, Sophie" said Hardison, trying not to grin.

"Oh. Well, I'm on my way back to the safe house."

"Okay, we'll see you there." Hardison climbed into the front seat and started the van.

* * *

><p>When they got back to the safe house Nate was still tied up, mostly because Eliot thought the older man might take a swing at him and he wanted room to move if it happened. The look in Nate's eyes was pure murder, and it didn't help when Sophie opened the door of the van and then started giggling madly.<p>

"Eliot, *hic* I think you'd better *hic* let me untie him," she said.

"Fine by me," Eliot said, and vacated the area.

"What happened?" Sophie asked. She pulled the tape off Nate's mouth as gently as she could. She'd warned him he should shave this morning.

She waited for him to answer, but he wouldn't even meet her eyes. After a second, she cut the ropes around him, and after sitting up and rotating his shoulders a couple of times, he simply climbed out of the van and walked away. Sophie stared after him in a mixture of hurt and confusion. She looked at Hardison.

"What the hell?" she asked.

Hardison explained about how Nate had freaked because they hadn't been able to hear her. "I think he just started to panic. I told him it could just be that they had a damper there to keep anyone from transmitting, but he wouldn't listen."

She sighed. "Me laughing probably didn't help. Men and their pride." Hardison looked affronted, and she stopped him before he could argue. "I'm going to find him. Tell the others we'll be back later." Shaking her head, she started off in the direction Nate had gone.

* * *

><p>She found him sitting in a park, the kind that had chess sets as part of the tables.<p>

"Sorry I laughed," she said. "You just looked so ridiculous."

He shrugged and continued to stare at the board. "Whatever," he muttered.

"Nate, why are you so angry? Eliot didn't actually hurt you, right?" He shook his head. "So why?"

"Soph, I can't protect you."

"Who asked you to?" she said, a bit angrily.

"I did." He looked up. "I promised myself I'd take care of you guys, and I couldn't. They took us and I couldn't do a damned thing about it. How can you ever feel safe around me?"

She tilted her head back, silently praying for patience. "Nate, you're right." He looked up at those words. "You can't protect me. Not always. Someday something is going to happen and I'm going to die. It might be a con gone wrong, it might be an accident, it could even be cancer. That's what killed my father." He flinched at the word, and she could almost see Sam in his eyes. "There are things in the world you can't stop. If you're going to try to control every single thing for the rest of your life than you aren't going to have time to enjoy anything. Like whatever the hell we are," she said, reaching across and taking his hand. "What brought this on now?"

"Lying there in the van feeling completely helpless. I couldn't even say your name because he taped my mouth shut."

"I'll talk to him. He really shouldn't have done that. But he was protecting you." She tugged on his hand. "Come on. I bet you can guilt Eliot into cooking dinner."

* * *

><p>It was almost another month of preparation before Nate was ready to proceed with his plan. On the surface, it was simple; between the files that Sophie had gathered and the ones Hardison had found, they had more than enough dirt to raise serious questions about what the CIA was involved in, both in the States and abroad. Nate offered these in trade for the CIA immediately suspending all experiments at the facility where they'd been kept. It was a good bet that it wasn't the only facility like it, but as Nate had told Hardison and Parker, it was a step in the right direction.<p>

Also, in the course of his digging, Hardison had come across the name of the person responsible for having them taken in the first place. Nate had demanded his immediate resignation and an investigation into his private life (Hardison hadn't even had to fake the guy's guilt; his hard drive was filled with child pornography.) Sophie had thrown up after looking at the pictures.

Of course, Nate had no intention of handing over all the evidence. Every so often, he would send a new piece of information to Conrad, just to let him know that they still had damaging files that they could use. Also, he made sure that Conrad was aware that if anything happened to any of them, the information would be made public, all of it, immediately. To this end, Nate had gone to ten of the most trustworthy clients that his team had helped in the past four years and handed each a folder, asking them to keep it safe and giving them instructions about what to do in the event of his team's demise.

It was a relief to them all when Nate returned unscathed from his meeting with Conrad. Sophie had been the most opposed to him going alone, or maybe it was simply that she was the most vocal. She'd slapped him, too, which at this point he was sort of coming to expect. Eliot had been angry, too, wanting to go and watch Nate's back, but Nate had replied that in the event that he was captured again, they needed a retrieval specialist on the outside, not stuck in there with him.

* * *

><p>"I'm back," he said, somewhat unnecessarily. They were all sort of huddled together in the living room. "It's done."<p>

"Can I go steal some stuff now?" Parker asked.

Of all of them, the forced captivity had hit her the hardest. Tara joked that the person who invented the phrase 'stir crazy' must have meant Parker.

"Parker!" they all said.

"What?" she said innocently.

"No, Parker, no stealing today. We're having a party to celebrate our freedom," said Sophie, "And you, my dear, are wearing a dress." Parker stuck her tongue out at her.

"Keep doing that and your face will stick that way" said both Nate and Maggie at the same time. They looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"You guys are sooo old," said Hardison.

Eliot had poured wine for each of them (except Nate, to whom he handed a wine flute filled with Coca-Cola). As he went to hand one to Sophie, she said "Actually, I think I'll have what Nate's drinking."

She wasn't sure whose eyes she could feel boring into her back when she went to the fridge. When she turned around Maggie, Tara and Nate were all staring at her. "What?" she said.

Maggie walked over and looked her in the eyes and then pulled her into a hug. Sophie gave up the pretence and buried her eyes in her friend's shoulder.

"I'm bloody terrified," she whispered. Maggie just tightened her arms.

Sophie wasn't sure what she was expecting when she finally looked up, but it wasn't to find Nate waiting there to hug her as soon as Maggie let her go. "Guess it wasn't just the porn that was bugging you huh?"

She shook her head against his shoulder. When he pulled away, Tara grabbed her. "Am I ever glad I'm not you," Tara said, grinning.

"Hey y'all, what is this, like, hug Sophie day or what?" Hardison looked confused.

"Sophie's pregnant," said Parker, and then looked defensive when Sophie raised an eyebrow. "Well, you left the pregnancy test in the garbage in the bathroom. And you were the only one in that bathroom that day, other than me, and it wasn't mine."

"Parker, I don't even wanna know why you were going through the garbage. Nasty," Hardison shuddered. Then apparently the whole thing got through to him because he jumped up and ran over to Sophie and hugged her too.

"Hey Hardison, get your little laptop thing and find out what pregnant women are supposed to eat so I can make dinner," Eliot said.

"Laptop thing? It's called an I-Pad. I-Pad. Get it right man."

"Whatever, man, just do it."

"Wait," Sophie said. She picked up her drink. "First, a toast. To freedom."

As they repeated her and then clinked glasses, she looked at Nate. And smiled.

* * *

><p>Author's Note(s):<p>

* * *

><p>The first scene is from Babylon 5: Shadow Dancing.<p>

The second is from Babylon 5: Between the Darkness and the Light.

The third quote is from John Sheridan in Babylon 5: Ceremonies of Light and Dark.

Also, as Maggie stated, what Tara quoted from was Jesus to his disciples and is found in the New Testament of the King James Bible, Matthew, Chapter 3.


End file.
